RICH REWARDS FOR RUBBER? Research in Indonesia is exploring how smallholders can increase rubber production, retain biodiversity and provide additional environmental benefits Trees for Change No 8 Trees for Change No 8 The World Agroforestry Centre, an autonomous, non-profit research organization, aims to bring about a rural transformation in the developing world by encouraging and enabling smallholders to increase their use of trees in agricultural landscapes. This will help to improve food security, nutrition, income and health; provide shelter and energy; and lead to greater environmental sustainability. We are one of the 15 centres of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR). Headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya, we operate six regional offices located in Brazil, Cameroon, India, Indonesia, Kenya, and Malawi, and conduct research in eighteen other countries around the developing world. We receive our funding from over 50 different investors. Our current top ten investors are Canada, the European Union, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, the United Kingdom, the United States of America and the World Bank. RICH REWARDS FOR RUBBER? COCOA FUTURES Research in Indonesia is exploring how smallholders can increase rubber production, retain biodiversity and provide environmental benefits © World Agroforestry Centre, Nairobi, Kenya, 2011 Suggested citation: Pye-Smith C. 2011. RICH REWARDS FOR RUBBER? Research in Indonesia is exploring how smallholders can increase rubber production, retain biodiversity and provide additional environmental benefits . ICRAF Trees for Change no.8. Nairobi: World Agroforestry Centre. ISBN 978-92-9059-299-0 Publisher: World Agroforestry Centre Author: Charlie Pye-Smith Supervision: Paul Stapleton Editor: Betty Rabar Design and Layout: Reagan Sirengo Cover photo by Charlie Pye-Smith All photographs by Charlie Pye-Smith except page 11 by Eric Penot Front cover: Since the end of the civil war in Aceh, farming communities have had better access to high- quality rubber and cocoa seedlings. Members of a women’s group in Meunasah Krueng. This booklet may be quoted or reproduced without charge, provided the source is acknowledged. No use of this publication may be made for resale or other commercial purposes. All images remain the sole property of their source and may not be used for any purpose without written permission of the source. World Agroforestry Centre United Nations Avenue, Gigiri P. O. Box 30677-00100 Nairobi, Kenya. Phone + (254) 20 722 4000 Fax + (254) 20 722 4001 Via USA phone (1-650) 833-6645 Via USA fax (1-650) 833-6646 Email: [email protected] Website: www.worldagroforestry.org Contents Page Introduction iv RUBBER MATTERS 1 The changing patterns of land use 2 RESEARCHING THE ALTERNATIVES 11 Adopt and adapt 13 Do these rubber systems make economic sense? 16 THE SEEDS OF CHANGE 19 Spreading the message 20 Further afield 22 THE PRICE OF PROGRESS? 26 But what is it actually worth? 27 Acknowledgements 31 iv v Foreword In the mid-1990s, the landscape in many parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan was undergoing rapid change. International agencies such as the World Bank were promoting high-yielding monocultural rubber plantations and these were beginning to replace traditional, species-rich jungle rubber gardens on many smallholdings. Monocultural plantations provided farmers with higher yields and better incomes than jungle rubber. But there were disadvantages too. Converting jungle rubber to monocultural plantations required considerable capital investment, and the shift to more intensive systems of rubber production was causing significant loss of biodiversity. These trends prompted the World Agroforestry Centre and its partners to devise alternative systems of rubber agroforestry which would improve smallholder yields and incomes, yet retain a good measure of some biodiversity. Over the next decade, scientists tested a range of systems, selecting technologies that were appropriate for smallholders who had relatively little cash, limited family labour and small landholdings. The various rubber agroforestry systems which we researched and promoted have proven to be highly attractive to tens of thousands of smallholders. All achieve higher returns to labour than jungle rubber, at investment costs substantially below those of monoclonal smallholder systems. Furthermore, some provide higher returns to labour than the best monoclonal systems, at v a lower investment cost. Some of these rubber agroforestry systems provide farmers with fruits, timber, resins and medicinal plants, as well as latex. They also act as an important refuge for biodiversity, even if they are not as rich in wildlife as jungle rubber. However, there is no getting away from the fact that the area under jungle rubber is likely to decrease further, as farmers convert their land to more profitable uses. During recent years, our scientists have been looking at the possibility of establishing reward systems which could encourage some farmers to retain their jungle rubber and the important ecosystem services they provide. As this booklet shows, this remains a work in progress. We are grateful to our many partners in this innovative work, including the Indonesian rubber research community, CIRAD and the many organizations which have provided support for our research on rubber agroforestry. Special mention goes to the Common Fund for Commodities, the UK Department for International Development (DFID), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), the European Union, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and Bridgestone Japan. Dennis Garrity Director General World Agroforestry Centre Around 80% of Indonesia’s latex is produced by smallholders. vi 1 Abdul Roni is among the thousands of farmers in Sumatra to benefit from the World Agroforestry Centre’s rubber research. 1 Introduction Like most farmers in the Indonesian province of Jambi, Abdul Roni used to make a meagre living from his rubber gardens, just enough to keep his family in clothes and food, but not enough to pay for the children’s education or much else. However, his life began to change for the better when scientists from the World Agroforestry Centre encouraged him to replace some of his low-yielding ‘jungle rubber’ gardens with a different form of rubber agroforestry. “I changed the way I manage my land,” he says. “In 1996, I cleared the jungle rubber, planted high-yielding clonal varieties and learned how to space my trees, weed between the rows and control disease. I also started to use fertilizer, something I’d never done in the past.” Five years later, he began to tap his young rubber trees, and today his yields are three times higher than they were before. He has also planted timber trees among the rubber and these will provide wood to build homes for his children. A few days before Roni showed us round his rubber gardens in Sepunggur village, Bungo District – he arrived on a new Honda scooter – he had sold 200 kg of wet rubber at the local auction market for 3.4 million rupiah (US$ 377), a considerable sum of money in rural Indonesia. A block of wet rubber, awaiting transport to the auction market in Bungo District. 2 RICH REWARDS FOR RUBBER? : Research in Indonesia is exploring how smallholders can increase rubber production, retain biodiversity and provide additional environmental benefits This was his harvest for two weeks from 2 hectares of rubber garden. His three eldest children were born too soon to benefit from his new higher-yielding rubber system, but the remaining four have been more fortunate. “I’ve been able to pay for my fourth child to go to university, and I’m earning enough money now, from the rubber and other businesses, to pay for the education of the youngest three,” he says. The shape of things to come? Roni is one of many hundreds of farmers in Sumatra to benefit from a series of research programmes managed by the World Agroforestry Centre, the Centre de coopération internationale en recherche agronomique pour le développement (CIRAD) and the Indonesian Rubber Research Institute. The research began in the mid-1990s, by which time many millions of dollars had already been spent by agencies such as the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank on the promotion of high-yielding High-yielding clonal rubber grafts in a village nursery. monoclonal rubber plantations. In